Poetry
Open Winter
Rae Gouriand
Light has risen & spread itself thin.
The hour between here & dreaming.
Eyes weave scene with scene.
At every turn growth splits & takes
room from absence. Scars of pith
on aspen twig. Grass guards silence
on its tips, offers frost to space. Mice
sleep in wickless & iced hiding, letting
go the time. White sky flashes & waves.
Lumen accumulation, curtain of blur,
quiet static. An arbor winters songs
of pea-green vine & I knit with steps
the number of times we cross in thought.
Chest parted & breath opened to cold.
Any thing glows & exceeds its given.
Needles drop on the white path,
summons in focus. There is only
so much stillness inside an eye.
The slow iris offers no promise.
Downhill the river rushes past,
cold Ohio water knowing nothing
of ending, only its present name.